Typically, people go for yachting holidays to Bali, Maldives, Greece and Turkey. However, the coastline of Andhra Pradesh has tremendous water holiday facilities.
Consider this: The state has 10 yachts with two cabins each and each cabin is priced Rs 45,000 an hour, running for around five hours a day. It would amount to around
Rs 5 lakh per day. Multiply that into 200 business days in a year and into 10 yachts. That’s one billion!
That brings us to the four-day festival that was organised by Andhra Pradesh Tourism, in association with E-Factor Adventure Tourism. Initially planned for March 28-31, it was postponed by a day as some of the yachts arrived late. The festival was flagged off at the new jetty on Harbour Road in Visakhapatnam (Vizag).
The purpose of Vizag Yachting Festival was to position Vizag on the marine tourism map of India. Why Vizag? As we know, the north-western part of Andhra Pradesh was separated to form the new state of Telangana in 2014, and historical-cum-tech hub Hyderabad became part of Telangana.
In other words, the state tourism lost Hussain Sagar lake, Charminar and biryani. What was left? Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, and pilgrimage destinations Tirupati and Srisailam.
“Good tourism marketing of destinations can contribute up to 24 per cent of the state’s GDP alone. If we can promote tourism in the right manner, we can get more travellers willing to spend and thus increase the GDP,” said Kaushik Mukherji, principal adviser, government of Andhra Pradesh, ministry of tourism.
Wondering why hiring a yacht is so expensive? “A yacht holiday is not a mass product. An hour of running a yacht uses diesel worth Rs 20,000. Then you have a trained marine captain, an engineer and a deputy, and a hostess. How can we sell it at a ticket of Rs 500 an hour?” said Kaushik Mukherji, principal adviser, government of Andhra Pradesh, ministry of tourism.
ON BOARD
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COMING SOON TO VIZAG
INS Viraat. After serving the Indian Navy and the Royal British Navy for more than 27 years, this aircraft carrier vessel is likely to be converted into a “diving site” on the seabed, or a museum, or a convention centre in Andhra Pradesh. It was the oldest serving warship in the world.
